Educational systems get a lot of attention all over the world. For years Americans thought their educational system was the world standard. America was early in offering an education free to all citizens. And Americans quickly got to the top of world charts with its percentage of high school graduates. But that was all long ago – back in the 1950s.
Since then almost every developed country has exceeded America’s educational system. Today America is known for its graduate schools. There is little doubt that if you want a master’s or Ph.D. you will get a good program at a good price in America. Same is true for professional degrees, like law, medicine or an MBA. But below that? But from kindergarten through high school, we are no longer even competitive with other countries like Japan, Taiwan, Germany and the U.K. (just a short starter list).
Most Americans know this. It is the lead every year once or twice in the major newspapers. So Americans usually step up to vote bonds for more school buildings and equipment. And they pay the highest property taxes on the globe to cover operating costs like teacher salaries. While not the best, America’s is BY FAR the most expensive educational system on the planet. Yet, year after year America’s basic educational system falls farther behind competitively.
Today many of America’s best college admits are home schooled – they don’t go to a public school at all! Long considered an approach only used by religious extremists, home schooling the last 20 years has started to show dramatic results. This week the top high school applicant in Illinois (which includes the huge Chicago area) was a home schooled girl (read article here). She was accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Northwester, etc.,etc. And in the last winter Olympics we learned America’s best shot at medaling was from a home schooled young male.
Again and again we are seeing people who do better on exams, are more emotionally balanced, have better self-images and are better equipped for life are home schooled. Heaven help me for saying this. My past-on father was a lifetime educator, as was his sister, as was my oldest sister and her husband. I’ve lived around educators all my life – and we all believed in public education. But today, students are increasingly miserable and under-educated in the American system. Drug use is high, absenteeism is high, extra-curricular participation is down, students are losing all their liberties to draconian security measures, and yet shootings are surprisingly common.
The problem lies in management. It’s hard to find a more Locked-in administrator than the one in your local school. Years ago we turned over the reigns of our schools to these administrators in the belief that professional management would be better than all the involvement which used to come from parents. And those professionals rapidly Locked-in a system for education, from curriculum to hours of teaching to accreditation for schools and teachers, that has served the administration well – and no one else.
I’ve had many discussions with the leaders at the nationally ranked and 4,000 student high school my sons attend. And the one thing that has always been consistent is they don’t care what I, or any other parent, or anyone else has to say. These administrators have no White Space in these schools to practice alternative educational techniques. And they don’t want any. NO DISRUPTIONS could be printed on a banner in the main hallway, since these managers have no tolerance for anyone doing anything that isn’t a defense or extension of the existing system. Results are immaterial to these administrators – all that matters is remaining Locked-in to past practices.
Talking to many school administrators the last 20 years, my impression is they have more in common with Korean dictator Kim Sung Il than early educational founders Plato, Socrates or Aristotle (those philosophers who were threatened with stoning for being teachers, yet laid the foundation for the inquisitive system of education we most value in graduate schools today). Their schools are dispassionate corridors of non-thinking supplication. Students, teachers and parents are not listened to, only disparaged if they disagree with these administrative stalwarts clearly happy to be Status Quo Police. The road to more money in education is via administration or seniority, and that route is only followed by pledging to never experiment, never do anything new and never actually open the doors to inquisitive thought and open-minded discussion.
It is hard for most parents to think that they could educate their children at home as well as they are taught at school. Yet, fledgling data (often anecdotal, admittedly) is that home schooling and alternative education is proving to be far more productive and valuable than the near-prison like conditions run by the modern wardens of thought we call principles, vice-principles and deans in the vast majority of our public schools. And we should not be surprised, because it is in these alternative and home schools that the educational process is Disruptive – like Socrates asking impossible questions of his students – and White Space is allowed where THINKING is more important than FOLLOWING RULES.
For young parents today, it should not be an automatic action to enroll their children in the local public or parochial (accredited but not public) school. If you want your child to be the next leader, someone needs to bring out the best in that child – and use the best available educational tools in new and possibly unique ways. And that is not going to happen in these Locked-in environments. American children are being set-up to fail when competing with better educated children from foreign countires once they enter universities which are increasingly filled with students from these other lands. It’s time parents get outside their box of traditional behavior and think about how their children can actually become competitive with children globally. There is no more important decision worthy of White Space than the education of our country’s youth.